Beyond Amsterdam

It’s October first and the beginning of another blog challenge month with The Ultimate Blog Challenge.  It’s a month long challenge where participants  try and share a blog post everyday along with supporting fellow participants.  I’ve signed up to participate, but since I’m currently travelling with my family by both land and sea, I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to make everyday.  

If you’re interested in joining, you can find the challenge here: Ultimate Blog Challenge

Beyond Amsterdam

Yesterday we decided to leave Amsterdam behind for a day and see a little more of the area around the city. We hopped on a train and made two stops, each very different from the other.

Our first stop was Zaandam.

Zaandam is only a short train ride from Amsterdam, but it felt like we had stepped into a different world. The town has a long connection with shipbuilding, timber and the industrial development of the Zaan region. At one point, more than 600 windmills were operating here, powering everything from sawmills and oil mills to paper and paint production. The area became one of Europe's earliest industrial centres.

We weren't really looking for anything in particular. We wandered through the streets, did a little shopping and stopped for lunch before continuing on to one of Zaandam's most interesting little treasures, the Czaar Peterhuisje.

The Czaar Peterhuisje

The Czaar Peterhuisje is easy to miss. It is a tiny wooden house tucked away in the middle of Zaandam, and at first glance it doesn't look like somewhere that would have attracted Russian tsars, Dutch royalty and even Napoleon Bonaparte.

But this little house has quite a story.

Built in 1632, it is one of the oldest wooden houses in the Netherlands. In 1697, Peter the Great of Russia came to Zaandam to learn about Dutch shipbuilding. He was travelling incognito and stayed in the home of a local blacksmith named Gerrit Kist, who had connections with Peter from his earlier work in Russia.

Peter stayed in the little house for only about a week, but that short visit was enough to make the humble workers' cottage famous. He was there because he wanted to learn the shipbuilding skills that had made the Dutch such an important maritime power.

It is hard to imagine someone as important as a Russian tsar choosing to sleep in a tiny wooden workers' cottage, but that is part of what makes the story so interesting. And the house really is tiny. (And yes, everything is that crooked).

Over the years, the Czaar Peterhuisje became a destination for important visitors. Russian tsars, Dutch monarchs and Napoleon all came to see the little house. Visitors also left their names by scratching them into the wooden walls and window glass, creating a rather unusual record of the people who passed through its doors.

We spent quite a bit of time inside, and I'll admit we had a bit of a mission.

We were looking for Napoleon's inscription.

Apparently, Napoleon visited the house in 1811, and there is a long-standing story that he left his name, or at least an inscription, on one of the walls. There is even a supposed signature that has been pointed out over the years. The problem is that it is so difficult to make out that there is some doubt as to whether it really is Napoleon's at all.

Needless to say, we didn't find it.

Or perhaps we did and just didn't recognize it.

Either way, we looked. And looked. It became almost as entertaining as the history itself.

The little house has been carefully protected over the years. In the nineteenth century, a structure was built around it to preserve the fragile wooden building, and today both the original house and its protective covering are recognized as national monuments.

It was one of those places that was much more interesting once we were inside it. From the outside, it is just a very small old house. Once you know who slept there, why he came, and who followed him through the door, it suddenly feels like you're standing in a little piece of European history.

Zaanse Schans

From Zaandam, we continued on to Zaanse Schans.

This was the part of the day I had really been looking forward to. We wanted to see the famous Dutch windmills and get a better feel for the landscape of the polders.

And it did not disappoint.

Zaanse Schans is probably one of the most recognizable landscapes in the Netherlands. The area brings together historic wooden houses, working windmills, waterways and the wide, flat landscape that makes this part of the country so distinctly Dutch. What we see today is a carefully preserved historic area, created in the twentieth century by moving traditional buildings from elsewhere in the Zaan region to this location. The first windmill was moved here in 1955, and Zaanse Schans was officially opened in 1972.

The windmills aren't just there because they look pretty.

For centuries, windmills were an important part of Dutch industry and water management. In the Zaan region, they powered sawmills, oil mills, paint mills, spice mills and many other industries. More than 1,200 windmills operated in the region over the centuries, with as many as 600 operating at one time around 1700.

And then there are the polders.

A polder is essentially land that has been reclaimed from water and then kept dry through an ongoing system of dikes, drainage and water management. In the Netherlands, where so much of the country lies at or below sea level, managing water has been part of everyday life for centuries. Windmills played an important role in this, pumping water out of low-lying areas so the land could be used for homes, farms and communities.

We enjoyed being out in the countryside surrounded by such a quintessentially Dutch landscape.

We walked along the paths, stopped to look at the windmills, watched the boats moving along the water and took in the peaceful surroundings. There were green fields, little bridges, traditional houses and windmills scattered across the landscape. 

And I think that was my favourite part of the day.

We had started the morning wandering through the streets of Zaandam and stepping back into the world of Peter the Great. A few hours later, we were standing among windmills and polders, looking out over a landscape that has been shaped by people working with, and sometimes against, the water for hundreds of years.

It was a very good day to get out of Amsterdam.